Saturday, January 26, 2013

Blogathon 01: One More Time...

Welcome to my fifth Blogathon. I will be here for 24 hours, raising money for the Hero Initiative. As of right now, we're up to $307.95 raised, which is an amazing number to be entering the Blogathon with. I hope that, throughout the day, that number grows as people come here, read what I and some other talented writers are doing, and decide that, what the hell, they should give some money to an extremely worthy cause.

If you do, drop me an e-mail at chevett13[AT]yahoo[DOT]ca or leave a comment, so I can keep track.

As I said, this is my fifth (and final) Blogathon. I did them in the summers of 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The 2009 one on Brian Michael Bendis's Avengers is the most-read thing on this blog (ever), while the 2011 one reached over $500 raised. These are 'big deals' for me. A chance to use whatever meager gifts I have to help give something back. This year, I've asked a slew of other writers to join me. That line-up is:

Throughout the day, we will post on a variety of topics. The format will be me posting on a topic, then one of my guests, and then me again in response. During the half-hour when their posts are going up, I'll also be doing posts over at Comics Should be Good on the best of 2012: my top ten comics of 2012, five books (in alphabetical order) that were from before 2012 that I read in 2012, and one 2012 in summation post right near the end. Basically, I took a format that allowed me some breaks and decided that, nah, I'd rather go full-on, non-stop.

Because that's the point. There's something superficially silly about a Blogathon and I get that. Which is why I have some specific rules that I would like to lay out (stolen from previous years):

1. I read all of the comics in advance, but have not written any of the posts.

2. I may try and work ahead a little bit to give me time to go get a slushy from 7-11 or make food/eat, but I will ALWAYS work on a post during its half-hour period. The last four times, in a couple of cases, I did 3/4s of a post before leaving and finished it when I got back. I take the whole 'post every 30 minutes' thing seriously. This is meant to be a pretty constant thing I'm doing here.

3. I won't be using images in my posts, because I don't feel like searching for so many damn covers. Also, the images would just be covers at the beginning of the post and... who cares? It hasn't been a problem in previous years, so I assume it won't be one now.

4. Not every post is going to be a winner. In fact, a lot of them won't be. Nor will I get to say everything I want to or would if I were writing about these works the way I normally do. But, dammit, I'm going to try.

5. Posts are being set for the hour/half-hour for simplicity. That means they ARE being scheduled technically, but by only a few minutes... better to be early than late.

6. I was crazy and stupid to do this, but it's too late to back out now. And, honestly, it's always fun.

Obviously, the guest posts are an exception. They've all been written in advance, because the logistics of getting 15 people to do their posts live over a 24-hour period are insane.

So, that's it. We're off. Read, enjoy, and donate if you can. I'll be back in 30 minutes to begin discussing Jack Kirby's '70s work with Tim Callahan.

About

Chad Nevett has a BA in English and political science, and an MA in English Language & Literature--Creative Writing. He was a reviewer for Comic Book Resources, blogger for Comics Should be Good, and writer for 411mania. He resides in Windsor, Ontario with his wife and her cat. He can be reached at chevett13[at]yahoo[dot]ca.